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His fiancee was forced to watch with her heart in her mouth as the 43-year-old plummeted towards the ground at speeds of up to 834mph.

Now he has come through the terrifying feat unscathed, Baumgartner is ready to tie the knot with 26-year-old Miss Oetl.

He intends to marry the former Miss Lower Austria in the New Year.

Fearless Felix has previously jumped from a plane and flown across the Channel with wings strapped to his back, leaped off the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, and plunged from the 101-storey Taipei Tower in Taiwan.

TV viewers around the world watched frozen in shock on Sunday as the Austrian skydiver took on the biggest leap of his career, freefalling from the edge of space.

It took Baumgartner around two-and-a-half hours to reach 128,177ft above the New Mexico desert - and less than ten minutes to plummet down

Leap of faith: Millions watched in shock as Baumgartner plummeted 24 miles at 834mph

Eight million saw the clip on YouTube alone
as he became the first skydiver to break the sound barrier in the
highest and fastest drop ever known.

Perhaps the sheer terror of the drop persuaded the brave pilot to keep his feet on the ground for a while longer.

He has admitted that one point in his supersonic plunge towards earth, he went into an out-of-control 'death spin'.

'In that situation, when you spin around, it's like hell and you don't know if you can get out of that spin or not,' he said.

'The exit was perfect but then I started spinning slowly. I thought I’d just spin a few times and that would be that, but then I started to speed up.

'It was really brutal at times. I thought for a few seconds that I’d lose consciousness.'

Freefall experts immediately recognised the danger that Baumgartner was in as he began to spin laterally, his head and feet rotating around his centre.

Death spin: Freefall experts immediately recognised the danger that Baumgartner was in as he began to spin laterally, his head and feet rotating around his centre

Risks as he turned through the air from 128,000ft included a headache, shortness of breath, vision failure, mental confusion and even unconsciousness.

Another result could have been burst eyeballs — this occurs when pressures exceeding -4 G's build up in the skull and blood and spinal fluid are forced outward.

'When I was spinning the first 10, 20 seconds, I never thought I was going to lose my life but I was disappointed because I'm going to lose my record. I put seven years of my life into this,' he said.

'Of course it was terrifying. I was fighting all the way down because I knew that there must be a moment where I can handle it.'

As onlookers in the command centre began to become extremely concerned, he finally managed to stabilise and regain control of his attempt.

More than 40 television networks in 50 countries carried the live feed, the organisers reported, and it was shown my more than 130 digital outlets.

Baumgartner has made more than 2,600 terrifying jumps.

Feet on the ground: Baumgartner is now a hero after he smashed records with his terrifying jump

He spent five years in the Austrian army, where he served in its parachute display team, before learning to base jump in 1995.

Within two years, he was the base jumping world champion after plunging from a bridge in West Virginia and had soon earned the sponsorship of energy drinks maker Red Bull.

After that, the sky was the limit as he tried ever more dangerous and outlandish jumps.

He once said he wanted to be known as ‘the God of the Skies’, adding: ‘The bit I love most is the second before jumping when you know it can all go wrong yet you still do it.’

Let's hope his bride-to-be has nerves of steel as well.

In 2003, he struck panic into the heart of then-girlfriend Katjuschka Altmann by jumping out of a plane at 30,000ft and flying over the Channel with just a 6ft-wing carbon fibre wing strapped to his back.

‘I couldn’t sleep last night, but I never doubted he could do it,’ she said after the stunt.